Face attendance for FMCG, factories, warehouses and depots
Xeel clocks shift workers in and out with their face on an Android tablet at the factory or depot gate — touch-free, with a blink check, the server's time and the GPS. Lateness is counted in minutes against the shift start, hourly workers are paid the hours between face in and face out, and payslips go out on WhatsApp.
Updated 2026-11-13 · by O'Sense, Lusaka
Where the wage bill leaks
Ten minutes late, five days a week, across a packing line, is a shift a month you paid for and did not get.
Minutes late are recorded against the start time for every worker, every day.
Face clock-in is touch-free: nobody presses a fingerprint pad at the start of a hygiene-controlled shift.
Peak-season pickers and packers on a daily or hourly rate are paid from the clock, not from the agency's list.
Enrol each worker once on the Android phone or tablet at the site. From then on they look at it, blink, and are clocked in — and do the same to clock out. Matching runs on the device, so a morning muster of hundreds moves at the pace of a glance, with or without signal.
Choose how each worker is paid. On a daily rate, the pay run pays the days their face clocked in. On an hourly rate, it pays the hours between their face in and their face out. PAYE, NAPSA and NHIMA are worked out on what was actually earned, and each payslip goes to the worker on WhatsApp.
When a face is not recognised, a supervisor can override — but only with a reason and a photo of the place, and the face the camera saw is kept beside it. A worker leaving before the minimum day gives a reason. The office sees all of it, by worker and by day.
Food and beverage plants, packhouses, bottlers, warehouses and distribution depots — one tablet at the gate.
Compared
| Paper register | Cards or PINs | Fingerprint terminal | Xeel face attendance | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Can be done for a friend | Yes — anyone can sign | Yes — cards get lent | Harder | No — face and a blink, on the spot |
| Hardware | A book | A reader and cards to replace | A terminal at every gate | An Android phone or tablet |
| Worn, dusty or wet hands | — | — | Can fail to read | Touch-free |
| No signal at the site | Works | Depends on the system | Depends on the system | Works, syncs later |
| Where it happened | No | The gate it was read at | The gate it was read at | GPS on every clock event |
| Into payroll | Retyped by hand | Usually an export | Usually an export | Daily and hourly pay straight from the clock |
Questions
One that is quick at a busy gate, touch-free, works through network drops and feeds payroll. Xeel face attendance runs on an Android tablet at the gate; workers glance and blink, matching runs on the device, lateness is recorded in minutes, and hourly and daily workers are paid from the clock.
It is touch-free: the worker looks at the tablet and blinks, with nothing to press. That avoids a shared fingerprint pad at the start of a shift.
Workers on an Hourly rate are paid the hours between their face clock-in and clock-out. A shift with a clock-in but no clock-out pays no hours, and the pay run names those days before you release it.
Field staff are better served by FieldOps, which records the visits a worker makes and the route they took on one map. Face clock-in is for people who start and end their day at a site with the device.
Yes. Faces are matched on the phone or tablet itself and every clock-in and clock-out is saved on the device first, then sent when signal returns, each with a key so nothing is recorded twice. The time is taken from the server's clock, so changing the time on the handset does not change the record.
Face clock-in is part of Xeel, priced per month as one app. There is no charge per worker or per face, and the employee register is free with every plan. Message O'Sense on WhatsApp on +260 974 546 632 for current pricing.
The face template -- the numbers a face is turned into -- is stored encrypted on the device, with the key in the Android Keystore, and is never uploaded. Only the enrolment photo reaches the office, so a replacement phone can be set up again. How O'Sense handles biometric data under Zambia's Data Protection Act 2021 is in the privacy policy.
Known limits — not bugs. Face clock-in runs on Android phones and tablets, not iPhone. A clock-in outside a site boundary is recorded with its coordinates, not refused. Monthly-salaried staff are paid their salary, with attendance shown rather than deducted. Xeel records attendance; it does not open doors or turnstiles. The blink check stops a photo or a screen; it is not a claim that no attack can ever work.
Other workforces
Message us on WhatsApp and we will set up your gate — enrol the shifts, set start times and rates, and run payroll from the clock.